Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: A Damp 1968

In the latest episode of our submersible podcast, Ken and I talk sunken Dunwich, Gulina Karimova, professionalism, and saving Anne Boleyn.

Gen Con 2013 Gloating and Thanks

Another Gen Con now recedes into the Mountain Dew-scented mists of time. Now in an O’Hare waiting lounge, a familiar mix of euphoria and sleep deprivation dulls my cognition.

The Pelgrane Press decisively smashed previous sales records. I’ll let Simon provide the percentage figures, should his argent reserve permit. Most pertinent to my agenda, Hillfolk and Blood on the Snow posted very satisfying numbers. The companion volume did surprisingly strongly. You expect supplements to sell a fraction of the core book. Here that fraction was much bigger than the norm. Even better, sales picked up on the Sunday, suggesting that people who’d earlier on picked up the core back came back later for the companion.

13th Age and Eternal Lies were no slouches either. Double Tapped, the new goodies book for Night’s Black Agents, sold out, and the core game, buoyed by Ken’s double silver ENnie triumph, all but did so as well.

Gen Con offers a chance to spend time with a large swath of my favorite people, and I cram moments of catching up into my schedule as greedily as I used to trawl the halls for signs of the new hotness. A record number of past and present members of my game group made themselves present, including illustrator Rachel Kahn and illustrator/graphic designer Chris Huth, both immersed in the giant festival of gaming love for the first time. I loved seeing the experience through their bedazzled first-timer eyes.

A couple of big future projects solidified at the show and I look forward to spilling the beans on them in the weeks and months ahead.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by with kind words for my work, including a certain much-lauded podcast. This tight shot of ego gratification now goes into emotional storage to be fed upon until, oh, say, Dragonmeet.

Thanks to the Hillfolk contributors who took part in our two mass signings, in all their chaotic, ink-stained glory.

And thanks to Hillfolk backers who picked up their copies at the show. As you may have heard, shipping costs have spiked horrifyingly since our campaign in the fall, so by grabbing your books in Indy you helped the project yet again.

Now time to rest…oh, wait. Tomorrow is programming day for the Toronto International Film Festival. And then Ken arrives on my doorstep Friday so we can descend as a dynamic dyad on FanExpo Canada.

I might catch some rest in October, I guess…

Gen Con Day Two: Read to the Bottom for the Giant Dangling Hint

If you ever get a chance to attend a Q&A-format panel moderated by Jack Graham of Posthuman Studios, take it. He works the room like a nerdgeist standup comic, softening up questioners by asking them where they’re from and then hitting them with a leftfield question. Do Oklahomans add more tornado threats to their games? Would you sooner be Mork or Mindy? The gauntlet thus having been run, he hands the foam Talking Axe to the participant, who then throws his query to the panel.

Here it was a question for the Campaign Doctors on how to address particular ongoing problems in one’s game. As they often do at Gen Con, the basic “what do I do about this one guy in my group” query took on unusual permutations—how not to stump players when you distribute narrative control, or how to run for an outwardly detached 14 year old. Amanda Valentine provided sage advice, seizing high ground as the voice of reason. Luke Crane served up delightful iconoclasm, particularly when hilariously informing one group of Burning Wheelers that they were playing his game wrong. Comically heightened apoplexy abounded. And of course I said the Things I Always Say.

Speaking of which, the later GUMSHOE panel with Kenneth Hite, Simon Rogers and your quasi-humble correspondent started with the basics and zoomed out to masterclass detail in the second half. As far as I can tell I succeeded in recording it, and we’ll be mining the choicer bits as a recycled audio segment on an upcoming instalment of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff.

Then I got to do the Bob Hope thing, showing up to deliver a cameo appearance in Jeff Tidball’s intensive RPG design workshop. If you are thinking of jumping into the field and see him doing this at a future show, block out that chunk of time and get ready for an invaluable crash course. I dropped some choice design science, told a few jokes, and swanned out again. Next time I’ll have to have “Thanks for the Memories” loaded on my smartphone as I stroll in.

Last night saw Ken once more dipped in silver glory as he clutched two such medals, honoring Night’s Black Agents for Best Writing and Best Game. He has become so accustomed to such feting that the later uptick in his overweeningness was barely perceptible.

Or perhaps John Kovalic, back at Gen Con for the first time in nine years to promote his fab new party game ROFL, noticed it more acutely than the rest of us.

Oh, and somewhere in there I had a very fruitful meeting concerning the Battlechimp Potemkin. Make of that what you will.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: A Tank Wearing a Truck Hat

In the latest episode of our electrifying podcast, Ken and I talk period Night's Black Agents, Jasper Maskelyne, Kickstarter doom and Nikolai Tesla.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: An Indictment of Your Pudding

In the latest episode of our omnipresent podcast, Ken and I talk surveillance turtling, US vs UK words, player betrayal, and the Spear of Destiny.

RPGGeek Nominations

I’m absolutely gobsmacked—in a good way, naturally—to learn that the brand spanking new Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast is already up for a prestigious award. Thanks to the gang at RPGGeek for the Golden Geek Award nomination.

Thanks are also in order for their nods to Kenneth Hite’s Night’s Black Agents, with rules by yours truly, in the Best RPG Category. And for their recognition of my game Ashen Stars for Best Artwork and Presentation. Congratulations to Jerome Huguenin, Chris Huth and art director Beth Lewis for this spotlight on their fine efforts.

My Pelgrane pals can also be proud of nominations for 13th Age for Best RPG, a signal accomplishment given that it’s only available in an electronic sneak peek form, and for Ken’s Bookhounds of London for Best Supplement.

As it would be crass to lobby those of you who vote for the awards to cast ballots for these nominees, I will merely sit here, casting significant glances in no particular direction.

Fast Times at the Pelgrane Booth

Thursday is always my favorite day to man a booth at Gen Con. That’s when your most devoted readers and gamers show up to say hi and grab the new stuff. Pelgrane had a record Thursday this year, with an early rush followed by a slow and steady diminishment of its stacks of books. Thanks to all the Pelgraniacs who reported for duty.

The star item this time is unquestionably Kenneth Hite’s Night’s Black Agents. Its “Bourne if Treadstone were vampires” elevator pitch makes for an easy sell. So much so that the booth may well run out of them before show’s end. If you’re planning to grab one, don’t put that off for the last minute.

I was unsure how the Stone Skin Press books would do at a gaming convention—our adventure into fiction is not directly related to the main Pelgrane mission after all. Once more the taste and sagacity of Gen Con attendees dispels my reflexive Canadian pessimism. We will probably run out of these as well. (That’s The New Hero 1 and 2, and especially Shotguns v. Cthulhu, for those joining us already in progress.) There will be a signing with many of the Stone Skin authors here at the show on Sunday at 11am, for which we’ll be holding a quantity of the books back.

Also garnering a gratifying response is the Tartarus/Terra Nova adventure double-header for Ashen Stars, combined in the Ace Double style of old. I didn’t even know this would be here, but that’s Simon and Beth for you. Turn your back on them for a minute, and they’ll print up your new product and have it out for Gen Con.

For which, see also the appearance of the Dying Earth Revivification Folio, which I also didn’t expect to see here in its tastefully arcane finished state. Since the Dying Earth RPG started it all for Pelgrane, it tugs at the heartstrings a little to see this refurbished, streamlined version to the game being exchanged for the richly-deserved terces of a discriminating clientele.

I tend to forget last year’s big thing, but Ashen Stars itself continues to sell well at the stand as well. If you’ve been thinking of picking it up, now’s the time, as the first print run dwindles as we speak. The tricky economics of reprints may force Simon to go turn the glorious color of the current run into black and white, so get it while you can.

In other news, my first but hopefully not last Writer’s Symposium event, the advanced plotting workshop, gave John Helfers, Matt Forbeck and I much to talk about. We represented a continuum of authorial pre-planning, with Matt on the mellow end and me as the obsessive who diagrams every major beat using Campaign Cartographer and the Hamlet’s Hit Points system before going to written outline. We managed to stop talking soon enough to give specific notes to writers currently grappling with their own works in progress.

Today (Friday) I will don my Pathfinder Tales author’s hat (disclaimer: not actually a hat) for a panel at noon and a signing at 1:30, where I will gladly deface copies of my new release, Blood of the City, and last year’s controversial demonic heist novel, The Worldwound Gambit.

I’m also the interviewee at a live recording of the Tome Show podcast, at 6pm, right before the ENnies.

With all these festivities planned, this had to be the day for the wonder of the Utamaro shirt. Prepare to be awed.

See P. XX, June Edition

The latest edition of Pelgrane Press’ See P. XX now waves for your attention in modest yet dignified fashion. As always, it features an edition of my eponymous column, in this case devoted to the three ways in which we read RPG core books.

Alongside it in the grab bag of Pelgraney goodness: crowdfunding, Night’s Black Agents achievements and competition winners, playtest updates and opportunities, Owl Hoot Trail notes, and Simon Rogers’ latest progress report on the increasingly bustling world of Pelgrane. Check it out.

The Warehouse of Dorian Gray

Insurers specializing in high-end art have become increasingly worried by the proportion of their clients’ art collections stored in a small handful of warehouses, mostly in Switzerland. By stashing their art at a so-called free port, the hyper-rich avoid taxes and customs fees.

To rip this story from the headlines, we can see an obvious plot for a heist flick, in which the PCs plot a single score allowing them to scoop up enough masterpieces to stock a world-class museum.

Let’s bend it a little into a premise for a Night’s Black Agents scenario. A venerable vampire, who perhaps once shared absinthe with Oscar Wilde, has transmitted his soul essence into a painting. You know the drill—it ages, he doesn’t. The only way to destroy him is to burn the canvas. He’s stashed it in a free port, confident that its experts will give it all the security they’d provide to a Rembrandt or Picasso.

The mission: under the guise of an ordinary heist, get in there and grab the painting—either to end him, or gain leverage to squeeze favors out of him, in furtherance of your broader war against the international bloodsucker hegemony.

See P. XX

In my promotional flurry for The Birds: There Goes My Dream Job I have been remiss in directing you to the April edition of Pelgrane Press’ webzine, See P. XX.

My eponymous column previews The Gaean Reach design process, explaining how a game I thought was going to be Skulduggery with a dash of GUMSHOE asserted itself the other way around.

But that’s just for starters! Also included:

• an inquiry into the love life of the doomed Augustus Darcy, from Book of the Smoke
• an introduction to the gorgeous artwork of new Pelgrane illustrator Phil Reeves
• tradecraft and character dossiers for Night’s Black Agents
• playtesting opportunities, including The Gaean Reach
• tantalizing first looks for the 13th Age, Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet’s upcoming love letter to dungeon-crawling fantasy adventure
• and as always, Simon’s update on what’s new and in the works at Pelgrane

Haywire

Those of you who like their formalist art films punctuated by bouts of vicious hand-to-hand combat are advised to hie themselves to Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. MMA fighter Gina Carano stars as a private contractor at the cross-section of crime and espionage who embarks on a mission of vengeance after her employer and ex-lover (Ewan McGregor) sets her up for a hit. Like many of Soderbergh’s genre pieces, its classical narrative acts as a framework for giddy stylistic exploration.

The dusty, desaturated color palette and score by David Holmes recall a 70s that never was. A sonically muted firefight on the streets of Barcelona presents a fresh take on the gun battle. Like any action director of note, he goes wide for the fight sequences, allowing us to see the choreography. It draws on the MMA style in an opened-up way that isn’t just grapples, balancing realism with bone-crunching impact.

For an obvious source of inspiration, see Jon Boorman’s classic revenge drama Point Blank, with Lee Marvin. Soderbergh appears on the commentary track in conversation, raising it above the default back-patting to a master class in atmospheric crime drama.

Today, rather than trying to teach fighters how to act, we tend to see actors trained to fight. Roles that might once have gone to Steven Seagal now go to Liam Neeson. In that light Carano represents a bit of a throwback. She’s not super-expressive as an actress, even after extensive post-production manipulation of her vocal track. But she does have presence, and unmistakable plausibility as a bad-ass, even in the non-combat sequences. In that she’s a throwback to Bronson and van Damme.

See it for its own hyper-cool virtues, and for the atmospheric inspiration it might lend your Night’s Black Agents series.

It’s Okay Till the Russians Do It

With Kenneth Hite’s GUMSHOE vampire spy thriller Night’s Black Agents now percolating out into the gamer bloodstream, you may be seeking resources for your real-life geopolitical chasing and shooting needs.

One site to bookmark is In Moscow’s Shadows, the blog of Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia’s criminal underworld, its national security apparatus, and the intersections between the two. (If the name sounds familiar, you may know Mark from his secret identity as a stalwart of the Glorantha community and author of the Mythic Russia RPG.) Watch also for his column, Siloviks and Scoundrels, in the Moscow News.

An example of the blog’s NBA utility can be found in this recent round-up of the various police and security forces we may see deployed if the anti-Putin protests escalate.

See P. XX

Proving it still counts as the September issue if it comes out on the 29^th, the latest edition of the Pelgrane Press webzine, See P. XX, has now escaped from the nest. My eponymous column introduces you to the whys and wherefores of DramaSystem and Hillfolk.

The first of several exciting Ashen Stars demos appears, in the form of Kevin Kulp’s “Stowaway.” This had folks coming up to the booth raving (and then buying the book) when he ran it at Gen Con, and it’s great to see it made available for a wider audience.

Also: Jonny Nexus takes aim at red herrings, we get a peek at the Night’s Black Agents layout, Graham Walmsley continues the Cthulhu Apocalypse, and Beth Lewis debuts her Q & A column by soliciting some Qs and laying down one of her own. And as always, head Pelgrane wrangler Simon Rogers updates you on new and forthcoming projects.

Check it out!

See P. XX

The pre-Gen Con edition of Pelgrane Press’ webzine bursts open like a veritable seedpod of roleplaying bounty.

My eponymous column shows you how to structure a GUMSHOE scenario around the characters’ defining investigative abilities. An Ashen Stars scenario serves as its illustrative example, also giving you a preview of that game. You'll also get a glimpse at the main cast of my in-house playtest.

But that’s not all! Kenneth Hite and Will Hindmarch present their afore-linked Fiasco / Trail of Cthulhu crossover. Ken reappears with a preview of vampire building from his upcoming game of blood-draining espionage, Night’s Black Agents. Simon Rogers rounds up current and upcoming Pelgrane releases. And Beth Lewis gives you the time-sensitive scoop on Pelgranic activities at the big show. Plus, you get to help name a rootin’-tootin’ western orc.

It all starts here!